Davide Brivio (Suzuki) disappointed by Andrea Iannone's results

By the end of 2016, the Suzuki was considered a good bike, with a win in the UK and three podiums at Le Mans, Motegi and Phillip Island. Andrea Iannone also enjoyed high esteem, with a victory in Austria and three podiums in Texas, Italy and Valencia.

Andrea's winter tests on the GSX-RR were also successful with the fourth fastest time in the Valencia tests and the second in the Sepang tests (0.08 behind). Maverick Vinales). The season began with a bang with the second fastest time in qualifying in Qatar. In the race, a seventh place in Texas was followed by two tenth positions in France and Italy, then a sixteenth in Barcelona last Sunday, after The Maniac was briefly overtaken by his temporary teammate Sylvain Guintoli.

Iannone currently occupies fifteenth place in the provisional general classification with 21 points, tied with Hector Barbera, behind Jack Miller (30 points), Loris Baz (23), and ahead of Tito Rabat (19).

For Davide Brivio, Suzuki Team Director, “We didn't expect Iannone's adaptation to take a long time. We started very well. After the Valencia test, Andrea was very happy with the bike, “fantastic”. At the time, he pointed out that electronics was an area we needed to improve – and we still need to improve. We are also working on this.

“For the rest, he was quite happy. Then the race came and we found more difficulty. Electronics is one of the areas that Andrea thinks we need to improve even more. Thinking about this question, it comes from a motorcycle that probably has some of the most sophisticated electronics. So, it is true that we are not at that level.

“We are very young in this game. We need to recover fifteen years of experience. But that's what we do. We're getting additional engineers here from Japan to work on the electronics. We've changed the way the team works slightly to focus more people on electronics. We are conscious. We work step by step.

“Of course, with good reason, drivers are always very demanding. They want to fix the problem the next day, which is okay. It's their job to ask questions. We try to satisfy them as soon as possible. I can tell you that the racing department works very, very hard. I don't know how much time we need, how long it will take, but I don't see why we couldn't find the solution sooner or later. I do not know when.

“I think in general, in addition to all these problems, we also suffer from the fact that, in the end, Andrea is left alone as a driver. First of all, we don't have a satellite team. This is perhaps one of our weaknesses at the moment. And Alex Rins got injured.

“Maybe Yamaha is struggling a bit with this year's bike, but they realize that because they have Tech 3 with last year's bikes. They can compare data and information. Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult to understand. But anyway, the pilots can see the others and they can learn something.

“Alex is coming back. Of course we have to start all over again because he only did one race, a serious race, in Qatar. Then he got injured. So, as I said, the situation is difficult but we are working as hard as we can. I think we can improve, of course. Then in this game you don't have to hurry because you also have to do things correctly. 

In Montmeló, Suzuki continued testing on Monday and Tuesday with Sylvain Guintoli. “ This test was organized at the last minute because there was the opportunity to have Sylvain following this weekend. We are very happy to work with Sylvain because he gives very good feedback. So, we wanted to use it and have it test some parts, some solutions, and get the feedback.

“So we needed a test team, but our test team is in Japan. So, we couldn't move the whole team here, so what we did was we brought the test bike from Japan. It was a good opportunity to continue working with Sylvain. We are delighted to work with him.  

“That’s why we test a lot of things, a lot of ideas, geometries. It will be very important after this test to clarify the situation. Take the best equipment, go to Assen and see what happens there. »

Photo © Suzuki

Source: crash.net